


Frozen Things, They All Unfreeze

by threewalls



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Heartache, M/M, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lu Han can't ice the bruises on his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen Things, They All Unfreeze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maayacola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maayacola/gifts).



> Written for Maayacola, for the prompt: Chairlifts - Bruises, Lu Han & Xiumin.

Lu Han has a bruise on his thigh. It's roughly the size of a chicken egg, black and blue in the centre and pinky-purple at the edges. There are scabs down one side, thin lines, from the scratches from falling on the asphalt, even through the fabric of his jeans. The ones on his palm are worse, but they can give him a fingerless glove tomorrow. It won't stop Lu Han dancing.

The fan had been ok. The one who landed on Lu Han. The others, too, so excited to see them, wrists weighed down with presents. Feet unbalanced by strappy heeled sandals, so easy to fall. Everyone had been ok.

That had been important three hours ago, but Lu Han lives in the now. Now, his face is clean and his body showered, dressed in the tank and shorts that he packed into his carry-on last night. Some of the others are out picking up groceries, and some are walking around the dorm, talking too low for Lu Han to distinguish through his bedroom door. 

The bruise is so small, considering the way the muscles of his leg feel like they ache all the way down to his toes. It fits under the numb palm of his hand. It fits under the bag of once frozen strawberries he's been holding against it. 

Lu Han's eyes have been closed since he walked out on the discussion of dinner, closing his bedroom door behind him. They only moved in in April, but he knows the layout of this dorm like he knows both of Seoul dorms, like he remembers the trainee dorms, and the backstage passages of every studio they've visited, at least, the way they were the last time Lu Han visited them. Line of sight makes things easier for all of them, but Lu Han has a good memory. He's not sure if it's a perk that comes with his power, or just him, but he's always been good at remembering where things were.

He follows the walls of the dorm with his power, invisible touch sliding high across the lintels of doors. (People move through doors, and doors move, and so they are hardest to remember.) It's like groping in the dark, cupboard, cupboard, flue-- freezer. 

Lu Han exhales, and curls his fingers in a mimicking grip. 

He aims high, but also thinks that anyone stupid enough not to get out of the way of a floating bag of whatever it is deserves to be hit. The strawberries are slush and fingers of his injured hand tingle. His leg has sticky pink-red lines dripping down it and is nowhere near numb. Somewhere, there must have been a leak.

But Lu Han's concentration slips, and whatever it was slips through fingers that aren't really there and hits the floor just outside his stubbornly still closed bedroom door. Lu Han tastes blood; he's bitten through his lip.

The noise from outside gets a little louder, and then softer again, and there's a knock on the door. 

The strawberries have left a stain on Lu Han's shorts that is spreading and red. It's probably dripped down onto Yixing's sheets by now, too. This is why Lu Han doesn't let other people sit on his bed.

The door opens, slightly cooler air pushing into the still stale heat of his bedroom. 

"If you make a crack about it being that time of the month, I'll throw this at you," Lu Han says before they can speak.

But it's not Jongdae who is always immune to Lu Han's moods, or Yixing come to tease Lu Han into accepting a little healing massage, or _duizhang_ come to glare at Lu Han to the same end. It's Minseok, and if Lu Han is lucky, he's looking startled because of the speed of Lu Han's rapid-fire Mandarin more than because of what he's said. 

"Shut the door," Lu Han says, and then he gasps, sharp spikes of cold shooting through his thigh and his hand, so cold it burns down every thin line of strawberry juice, hip to ankle. His teeth chatter, and his eyelids flutter, and the pain is so much, that for several moments, it's all Lu Han can feel-- and then it ebbs until he's merely shivering, summer sweat prickling under his arms and down the back of his neck.

"Better?" Minseok is asking.

The door is shut, and Lu Han is confused why Minseok is still on this side of it, why he's suddenly so close. He has both hands held towards Lu Han, the one empty palm down in a gesture of power, keeping the strawberry mush cold but not too cold against Lu Han's leg, the other holding out a bag of frozen peas.

"You wanted this one," he says.

Lu Han wants his leg, and his hand, and his jaw not to hurt. He wants Minseok to put his frozen hands on Lu Han's leg until he can't feel anything. He wants Minseok to go away. Lu Han is used to not getting everything he wants.

"I'm fine. This one's cold again." 

"That one is leaking," Minseok says, sounding reasonable and looking completely awkward. And that's got to be it; he probably came in because no one else fretted to see frozen vegetables left somewhere they shouldn't be. He's probably flinching inside with how much he wishes he could strip down Yixing's bed, and Lu Han's shorts, and bundle it all up with laundry detergent. Lu Han wonders what would happen if he stood up, if Minseok would offer.

And now he's daydreaming again. It's so easy.

Lu Han grabs the peas from Minseok's hand; their fingers don't touch. He smiles, because Minseok is just being friendly, and because it makes Minseok smile back. That's ok because even if that makes Lu Han's stomach clench, it also means that Minseok is also leaving without saying more, because Wu Fan makes anyone he catches speaking Korean in China pay into a jar to buy Zitao foreign handbags, and because this isn't the room that Lu Han shares with Minseok and Wu Fan in Seoul. 

Except that he pauses by the door. "I can keep things frozen for longer." 

"Oh," Lu Han snorts. "Trust me. I know that."

The sticky bag of strawberries hits Minseok square in the chest. It's childish, but tonight Lu Han aches, and the pain in his leg makes harder to remember that he'll be fine in the morning. Lu Han tries to live in the now, and right now, everything pretty much hurts.

"But everything... unfreezes," Minseok says, thoughtfully sounding out each syllable. He's not looking at the bag of strawberries in his hand, or the bag of peas on Lu Han's thigh, pressing on bare skin where his shorts have ridden up. He's not looking at Lu Han. Lu Han knows that because he hasn't looked away from Minseok's face since he opened his eyes.

It's not Lu Han's leg that throbs when he looks at Minseok. It's July, and he told himself he was giving up on this feeling in March, long before the summer heat meant wearing as little as possible around the sticky dorm and swallowing sour disappointment with a smile every time Minseok looked away from Lu Han's bare arms and legs. Some aches don't leave bruises on the skin.

"It's summer," Lu Han says, and says it twice when he realises the first time had been too quick. "It's July. Of course everything melts."

"August is also summer." 

Lu Han growls in disbelief. This isn't-- they're just talking about the weather, aren't they? He's had months to teach himself not to look for hidden meanings when Minseok speaks to him in a language that Lu Han knows only imperfectly or in one that Minseok has been learning for less than a year.

"Some things need heat and ... more time to unfreeze," Minseok says. His soft, white cheeks turn a delicious rosy pink as Lu Han can only stare. It's summer. Heat can do that. But heat can't make Minseok look up and meet Lu Han's eyes just before he disappears behind the door.

Lu Han's still trying to puzzle out that expression thirty minutes later, when Yixing lopes into their bedroom to announce that dinner's ready, and that if Lu Han thinks that he's so crippled that he's getting out of Yixing's fabulous banquet-on-a-budget, well, Yixing can do something about that. 

There's a seat between Minseok and Jongdae, one that Lu Han wouldn't have taken last night. But that was then, and this is now, and when he arranges the peas in his lap, Minseok leans in his direction to ask if they're still cold enough.

"It's ok," Lu Han says, letting himself look and letting himself smile. "I'm ok," and he feels a drop of water land on his bare foot.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also comment at my [Livejournal](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/357550.html) or my [Dreamwidth](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/193607.html).


End file.
